On 11th June 2025, the Bishop of Southwark spoke in support of an amendment to the Holocaust Memorial Bill tabled by Lord Russell of Liverpool, which would stipulate that: “No Learning Centre should be constructed underground in order that a Learning Centre be constructed of adequate size in line with the recommendation of the 2015 Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission Report and in order to avoid detriment to Victoria Tower Gardens.”
The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, I support Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, as it encapsulates my concern. I intend to speak briefly. During the debate on ping-pong on the data Bill on 2 June, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, referred to some pre-ministerial training administered in the days before he and colleagues entered government, which included a former senior civil servant saying:
“Whatever happens, it is never too late to avoid making a bad decision”.—[Official Report, 2/6/25; col. 498.]
I believe that this Bill, heavy with good intentions, is prodigal with bad decisions, and I ask the Government to desist. When I hear the former Member of this House, Lord Williams of Oystermouth, whose sensitivity on these issues is matched by great wisdom, saying things such as:
“The hardest question for this proposal to answer, I believe, is whether we are being lured towards a grand gesture whose actual effects are so very far from clear”,
I am concerned.
We have a Holocaust memorial in Hyde Park and a number of centres for learning about the Holocaust around the United Kingdom. That we may have another memorial is not in dispute, but let it be a fitting one and let the learning centre be located in a space that is adequate for the scale of its subject, which this proposal is not. Indeed, let us work for a world-class learning centre, which this proposal can never be.
The nature of antisemitism, of which ignorance or even denial towards the Holocaust is a part, will not be countered by a proposal that few people want in a site that is difficult for large numbers to visit and raises real security issues. It is better by far to identify a facility and an artwork on a scale that is fitting and at least to consider, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said, linking it with a renaissance of the Jewish Museum. I support the amendment.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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